Quotes by Plato

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

Plato

As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have least with are the greatest babblers.

Plato

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Plato

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

Plato

Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.

Plato

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Plato

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

Plato

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

Plato

Death is not the worst than can happen to men.

Plato

Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

Plato

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Plato

For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection-for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.

Plato

Friends have all things in common.

Plato

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

Plato

He was a wise man who invented God.

Plato

He who does not desire power is fit to hold it.

Plato

He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

Plato

Honesty is for the most part, less profitable than dishonesty.

Plato

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly combat.

Plato

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

Plato

If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake.

Plato

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

Plato

Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.

Plato

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

Plato

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.

Plato

Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended.

Plato

Knowledge is true opinion.

Plato

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

Plato

Life must be lived as play.

Plato

Man...is a tame or civilized animal never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.

Plato

Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.

Plato

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

Plato

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is god, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but never less, dazzaling, passionate, and eternal form.

Plato

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything.

Plato

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten imparting grace.

Plato

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death

Plato

Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

Plato

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Plato

No human thing is of serious importance.

Plato

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

Plato

Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.

Plato

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

Plato

Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.

Plato

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Plato

Philosophy is the highest music.

Plato

Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

Plato

Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.N.B. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. See also Napoleon Bonaparte.

Plato

Science is nothing but perception.

Plato

So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain, namely, that nothing is certain.

Plato

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Plato

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.

Plato

The greatest penalty of evildoing - namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.

Plato

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

Plato

The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Plato

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

Plato

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

Plato

The life which is unexamined is not worth living.

Plato

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.

Plato

The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.

Plato

The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs when he first appears he is a protector.

Plato

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Plato

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

Plato

The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth. . .He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasures- -I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. . .Then how can he who has the magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all times and all existence, think much of human life He cannot. Or can such a one account death fearful No indeed.

Plato

There are three arts which are concerned with all things one which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them.

Plato

There is no such thing as a lover's oath.

Plato

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.

Plato

Thinking The talking of the soul with itself.

Plato

Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.

Plato

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.

Plato

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

Plato

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

Plato

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato

We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato

Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

Plato

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

Plato

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

Plato

Wise men talk because they have something to say fools, because they have to say something.

Plato

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

Plato

You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.

Plato

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.